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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone,

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Speaker 1: welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette and

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Speaker 1: I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Sitting across from me as always his senior writer, Jonathan Strickland.

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Speaker 1: Hey McFly you bo Joe. Those boards don't work on

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Speaker 1: water unless you got power. So let's go straight into

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Speaker 1: a little listener mail. This listener mail comes from Jeremy.

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Speaker 1: Jeremy says, Hi, my name is Jeremy, and I'm a

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Speaker 1: big fan of the show. After listening to the one

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Speaker 1: on plasma waist converters, I'm baffled as to why we

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Speaker 1: have not fully embraced this amazing technology. I was wondering

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Speaker 1: if you guys could do a show on something called

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Speaker 1: a bloom box. I don't know a lot of about it,

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Speaker 1: but I think it's about the size of an ice

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Speaker 1: chest and can power a home running off of natural gas.

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Speaker 1: It seemed almost too good to be true. Hopefully you

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Speaker 1: can talk about and keep up the good work. Thanks well,

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Speaker 1: thank you, Jeremy. We've decided we're going to start a

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Speaker 1: new series, not a new podcast, but a new series

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Speaker 1: within our podcasts, because we like to do that. This

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Speaker 1: was suggested by Mr Pellette himself. Indeed, it's demystifying the blank.

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Speaker 1: So in this case, we're demystifying the bloom box. Awesome. Um,

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Speaker 1: for a second there, I thought we were playing match game.

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Speaker 1: I thought we were playing a puzzle game, computer puzzle game,

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Speaker 1: graphically driven. We were de missedifying the bloom box. So

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Speaker 1: the bloom box, yes, actually bloom box is Did you

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Speaker 1: go to bloom Energy's website. Yes? I did, Yeah, so,

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Speaker 1: and I printed out the data sheet, which is apparently

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Speaker 1: printed on recycled paper, because it says that when I

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Speaker 1: printed it on it, Wow, I thought that was funny

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Speaker 1: that they included it. Anyway, So it is printed on

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Speaker 1: recycled paper. Yeah, they put it on the thing. But

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Speaker 1: how how do they know? I know, it's it's amazing,

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Speaker 1: it's a fantastic but no, they This has been something

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Speaker 1: that's in the news. I actually wrote a blog post

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Speaker 1: about it a few months ago. Um, because they sort

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Speaker 1: of hit the scene at the right time. As a

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Speaker 1: matter of fact, there was a thing on sixty minutes

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Speaker 1: the TV news show here in America. UM about it

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Speaker 1: not too long before I wrote that, and it's sort

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Speaker 1: of been a buzzworthy topic, but in a way it's

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Speaker 1: kind of not new. Yeah. First of all, let's let's

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Speaker 1: go ahead and say that that bloom Energy refers to

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Speaker 1: them as bloom Energy servers. Yes, they're not bloom Boxes,

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Speaker 1: at least not on the website. I didn't see a

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Speaker 1: direct reference to bloom box from their corporate message. That

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Speaker 1: was sort of the media name I saw. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think people have It's sort of like the we mote

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Speaker 1: as you are, I want to call the we remote

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Speaker 1: by Nintendo. The Nintendo put the kai bosh on calling

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Speaker 1: it the we moat before its actual release, but people

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Speaker 1: still call it that anyway, especially Jonathan. They probably felt

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Speaker 1: we morse about it. Oh so anyway, Yes, bluem Energy

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Speaker 1: calls the device the Energy Server, and there are a

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Speaker 1: couple of different varieties. The one that that you were

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Speaker 1: talking about, Jeremy, is not the one that they've already

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Speaker 1: released and isn't used by people. What they the data

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Speaker 1: sheet eye downloaded is for the corporate version, which is

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Speaker 1: the e S five thousand Energy Server, and it is

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Speaker 1: a much larger device actually takes up uh reportedly about

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Speaker 1: the size of a parking space, hopefully it's not the

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Speaker 1: one parked in the CEO slot. It weighs approximately ten tons,

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Speaker 1: so this is a hefty piece of machinery. Yes, it

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Speaker 1: does in fact run on natural gas, although it can

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Speaker 1: use other biogas. UM. It does require some water, about

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Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty gallons of water force startup UM.

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Speaker 1: It can output about a hundred kill the lots, which

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Speaker 1: is pretty significant UM and that could be used to

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Speaker 1: power several homes yep as well. So UM, I'm sorry

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Speaker 1: you're still giving some specs. Well, I was looking for

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Speaker 1: anything else that that folks might be interested in, and

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Speaker 1: I would encourage you, if you're really interested in in

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Speaker 1: the bloom box to to download the data sheet because

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Speaker 1: they really made it very easy to to understand. It

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Speaker 1: can't operate in a grid, which is interesting too because

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Speaker 1: for large buildings like for example, warehouses where you might

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Speaker 1: need a whole lot of power, or data centers for example,

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Speaker 1: where you need lots of air conditioning to cool the

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Speaker 1: computers inside. UM, you can operate them in a in

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Speaker 1: a grid. UH. You can have your own local grid

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Speaker 1: if you will to power your industrial applications. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: that was sort of the big news about the bloom

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Speaker 1: Box was that this was a device that could theoretically

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Speaker 1: allow people to get off the power grid entirely and

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Speaker 1: power their own homes with this little People were calling

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Speaker 1: it like essentially a portable power plan, yes, or a

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Speaker 1: a pint sized power plant. Um, it's a little more

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Speaker 1: complicated than that. Chris said that the idea itself was

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Speaker 1: pretty old. That's because the idea of the bloom box

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Speaker 1: is essentially it's a fuel cell or it's really a

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Speaker 1: stack of fuel cells. Yes. Um, that's sort of like

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Speaker 1: a battery. We didn't really discuss this in our batteries podcast,

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Speaker 1: but a battery is a group the cell individual cell

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Speaker 1: a battery is made up of, you know, can be

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Speaker 1: made up of several cells. Um. So in this case, yes,

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Speaker 1: it is like that in which it's got several cells inside. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So fuel cells and batteries share a lot in common,

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Speaker 1: all right. They both use chemical reactions to generate electricity. However,

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Speaker 1: with a battery, what you get is, generally speaking, you

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Speaker 1: have this chemical reaction that takes place withinside the inside

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Speaker 1: the battery generates the electricity, and eventually the chemicals run

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Speaker 1: out inside the battery, they convert into inert chemicals, at

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Speaker 1: least as far as electricity is concerned, right, and and

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Speaker 1: as far as even the rechargeable batteries have a limited lifespan.

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Speaker 1: There's only so many times you can put it through

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Speaker 1: a charge cycle. You know, you charge it, discharge it,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's eventually the chemicals inside are going to

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Speaker 1: wear out and you will have to recycle the battery. Now,

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Speaker 1: fuel cell is well, this is where the word fuel

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Speaker 1: comes in. You actually have to fuel it. You put

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Speaker 1: fuel into the fuel cell. It will use a chemical

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Speaker 1: reaction to generate electricity, but eventually that fuel will run

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Speaker 1: out and you will have to replenish it. Yes. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Now the fuel cells that a lot of us are familiar,

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Speaker 1: whether hydrogen based fuel cells. That's the kind that you

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Speaker 1: hear of for hydrogen powered vehicles, yes, and for for

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Speaker 1: other devices to I mean, we've we've talked about portable

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Speaker 1: fuel cells which can run on on hydrogen and other fuels.

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Speaker 1: And of course the big draw of hydrogen based fuel

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Speaker 1: cells is that the only emissions they create our heat

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Speaker 1: and water or water vapor um. The fuel cell of

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Speaker 1: the bloom Box is slightly different. It is it is

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Speaker 1: not a hydrogen based fuel cell. It uh, it's actually

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Speaker 1: kind of fuel cell. It's called a solid oxide fuel cell.

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Speaker 1: If if you've listened to our fuel Cell podcast, you

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Speaker 1: probably remember that we did talk a little bit about

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Speaker 1: solidoxide fuel cells. Solid Oxide fuel cells are well, they're problematic.

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Speaker 1: They can they can produce a lot of energy um.

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Speaker 1: They have that that potential, but they have to operate

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Speaker 1: at high temperatures in order to Most fuel cells have

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Speaker 1: a range of temperatures at which they can operate um.

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Speaker 1: And then outside that range they start to the efficiency

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Speaker 1: starts to decline, and then you get a certain temperature

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Speaker 1: where it just drops off in the fuel cell is

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Speaker 1: not gonna work for solid oxide fuel cells. That temperature

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Speaker 1: is quite high. UM. So that was a big problem,

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Speaker 1: is that how do you create a some sort of

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Speaker 1: facility or some sort of ice that can get energy

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Speaker 1: out of a solid oxide fuel cell um without having

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Speaker 1: to require too much energy to get it heated up

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Speaker 1: or make it dangerous for humans to be around. And

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Speaker 1: Bloom Energy says that they've cracked that nut. It still

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Speaker 1: operates at a pretty high temperature, but it's not at

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Speaker 1: the you know, incredibly high temperatures that other pretty earlier

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Speaker 1: solid oxide fuel cells used. And it's kind of interesting

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Speaker 1: the if you were to, first of all, I guess

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Speaker 1: we should kind of describe what bloom box looks like.

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Speaker 1: It looks like a it looks like a big, kind

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Speaker 1: of industrial sized refrigerator. You know. Now, if you were

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Speaker 1: to open up that refrigerator and take a look at

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Speaker 1: what was inside it, chiefly what you would see would

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Speaker 1: be stacks of tiles. These tiles are ceramic tiles, and

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Speaker 1: they are coated with two different what what bloom Energy

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Speaker 1: calls inks, a green ink and a black ink. And uh,

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Speaker 1: it's interesting because that's actually the anode and the cathode,

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Speaker 1: which if you listen to our battery episode you've heard

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Speaker 1: those terms before. And Blue Energy actually has a cute

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Speaker 1: little animation. Did you see that how it works? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's actually pretty helpful, So if you go to blue

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Speaker 1: Energy you can watch this animation. But essentially, the way

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Speaker 1: it works is that the bloom box has to heat up.

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Speaker 1: Once the temperature reaches a certain point, it starts to

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Speaker 1: draw oxygen in, which is attracted to the cathode side

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Speaker 1: of these tiles. Which is the black ink side. UM.

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Speaker 1: Then you have to pump fuel into the bloom box.

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Speaker 1: That fuel will mix with steam to become this reformed fuel,

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Speaker 1: which will get attracted to the anode side. The oxygen

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Speaker 1: from the cathode side will become ions. That means they

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Speaker 1: lose their electrons, and the electrons that that's what ends

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Speaker 1: up being the electricity. That's the electricity that flows out

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Speaker 1: of the bloom box into your home or your business

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Speaker 1: or whatever. And that oxygen will recombine with the reformed

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Speaker 1: fuel to form water and carbon dioxide a little bit

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Speaker 1: of carbon dioxide essentially, I think it was like one

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Speaker 1: part carbon dioxide to three parts water. The water would

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Speaker 1: then become the steam used in that in that that

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Speaker 1: fuel UM the creating the reformed fuel, that's what you

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Speaker 1: know that that water will just become steam. Again, more

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Speaker 1: fuel would come in and that would become the reform

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Speaker 1: fuel UM and the heat generated from this chemical reaction

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Speaker 1: would help sustain the bloom box, which is so the

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Speaker 1: h and twenty gallons of water that you talked about

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Speaker 1: it start up, that's what you need because you haven't

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Speaker 1: started the chemical reaction yet. Yes, so you have to

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Speaker 1: have some water to to get this started, and then

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Speaker 1: once it started, it should perpetuate itself as long as

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Speaker 1: there's more fuel coming into the system. So that's important

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Speaker 1: to remember. You have to have fuel of this to work.

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Speaker 1: If you don't have fuel, then, uh, then nothing happens.

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Speaker 1: So um, if you're using natural gas or biogas whatever

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Speaker 1: to fuel it, then the only emissions you get are

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Speaker 1: water and carbon dioxide and heat. And the reason for

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Speaker 1: that is because there's no combust combustion taking place, right

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Speaker 1: it's not igniting the fuel. It's there's a chemical reaction,

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Speaker 1: and that's why it's so much cleaner even though it's

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Speaker 1: a fossil fuel. You know, it's not like you're burning

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Speaker 1: coal to achieve you know, the the generation of power,

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Speaker 1: so you still have a carbon footprint, but it's much

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Speaker 1: smaller than using traditional coal based power. And I think

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Speaker 1: that's why the the Bloom Energy Server is such a

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Speaker 1: hot topic, if you will, um, is that it seems

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Speaker 1: to be a much greener source of electricity than you know,

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Speaker 1: uh than other sources of electricity. And the thing is

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Speaker 1: to um, it seems to be uh, the you know,

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Speaker 1: the thing that we have all been striving for since

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Speaker 1: fuel cells were created more than a years ago at

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Speaker 1: this point. I mean. Another point that Bloom likes to

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Speaker 1: make is the fact that older fuel cell technology is

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Speaker 1: required hard to find an expensive metals to run, where

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Speaker 1: Bloom Energy is essentially using sand creating ceramic from sand

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Speaker 1: rather plentiful, insensive, no shortage of that. Yes, um, the

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Speaker 1: Sahara is missing several refrigerator sized uh events of sand.

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Speaker 1: I figured they just went down to the local hardware

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Speaker 1: store and picked up a few things at playground sand

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Speaker 1: and yea anyway, No, but no, I mean assuming and

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Speaker 1: of course it's one of those things like hydrogen fuel

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Speaker 1: cells and cars. You know people people were so excited

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Speaker 1: about that, like, oh this is this is great. It's

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Speaker 1: just you know, water vapor and in five years will

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Speaker 1: all be dry having these cars powered by hydrogen. While

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Speaker 1: it's not that easy because you have to find the

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Speaker 1: source of the hydrogen, which is extremely challenging to do

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Speaker 1: on a cost effective basis. There's actually three main challenges.

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Speaker 1: One is that you have to find that hydrogen or

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Speaker 1: you have to purify it, so that requires energy just

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Speaker 1: going into it. The second is that the precious metals

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Speaker 1: that you referred to, many of these fuel cells require platinum,

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Speaker 1: which is not very plentiful or is it inexpensive. It's

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Speaker 1: quite expensive. And the third is the the fact that

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Speaker 1: there's no real infrastructure to support a fleet of hydrogen

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Speaker 1: powered vehicles. Right, You can't pick up another tank of

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Speaker 1: hydrogen in your local fill up station. Yeah, not for

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Speaker 1: most of them anyway. There are a few hydrogen stations,

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Speaker 1: but there are very few and far between. UM So

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Speaker 1: you have to build out that infrastructure. You have to

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Speaker 1: find a maybe not cheap, but at least financially reasonable

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Speaker 1: way of getting at hydrogen, and you have to find

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Speaker 1: a way to um create electrolytes that don't necessarily rely

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Speaker 1: on on the precious metals. So, yeah, that's interesting that

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Speaker 1: the ceramic tile itself acts as the electrolyte. Yes, uh,

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Speaker 1: the ink acts as the anode and cathode, and the

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Speaker 1: ceramic tiles the electrolyte. That's to me, I think that's

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Speaker 1: the real breakthrough. And they used metal plates to separate

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Speaker 1: the various tiles from one another, but they were really

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Speaker 1: cheap metal alloys. They didn't need it because this was

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Speaker 1: just a separator. It wasn't an electrolyte, so they didn't

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Speaker 1: have to get like a platinum sheet. Uh. That being said,

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Speaker 1: these energy servers are not cheap, No, but they're not.

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Speaker 1: They're not so exorbitantly expensive that companies have not been

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Speaker 1: installing them. I've seen a cost. I've seen a couple

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Speaker 1: of price points for these energy servers, the lowest being

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Speaker 1: eight hundred thousand American dollars I've seen I've seen seven

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Speaker 1: eight hundred thousand dollars, although I've also seen reports that

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Speaker 1: they are more than a million dollars each. So I've

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Speaker 1: also heard that within within around five years, they pay

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Speaker 1: for themselves from energy savings. That's the other thing we

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Speaker 1: should point out is it's not just that it's a

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Speaker 1: greener technology, but it's also cheaper depending upon fuel prices.

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Speaker 1: Because remember, you do have an ongoing expense. You have

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Speaker 1: to keep buying fuel to refuel the bloom box. So

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Speaker 1: as long as the fuel prices are lower than the

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Speaker 1: the fees you would pay the power company for electricity,

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Speaker 1: it makes financial sense to make this investment, especially if, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, you don't have to if you have a

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Speaker 1: renewable energy source, because I have read reports that it

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Speaker 1: could use solar power to provide the power needed to

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Speaker 1: fuel the fuel cell. I don't know how that works.

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Speaker 1: I tried finding out where this comes from, because I

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Speaker 1: honestly do not understand how you could create the fuel

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Speaker 1: that has to reform with the water vapor. I doesn't

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Speaker 1: understand how that works with solar power. But supposedly it does,

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Speaker 1: at least that's what the founder who went on seexty

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Speaker 1: minutes said. Um, that that really perplexes me. I honestly

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Speaker 1: don't know the answer to that. Well, Um, this is uh,

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Speaker 1: this is something that's been in development for about eight years,

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Speaker 1: nine years or so. Um, it's interesting how he came

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Speaker 1: up with the idea. Yeah, yes, I'd forgotten about that. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The the fellow who who came up with this technology

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Speaker 1: was originally working on and it's a KR. Sridhar. Yes,

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Speaker 1: And I probably butchered that name, and I apologize because

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Speaker 1: again I have terrible times with names. But he was

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Speaker 1: working on a project with with NASA, was a Mars project,

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Speaker 1: you know, trying to figure out the technical problems around

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Speaker 1: getting a human being to Mars. And one of those

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Speaker 1: is how do you carry enough oxygen to last for

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Speaker 1: the entire trip, and more importantly, how do you continue

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Speaker 1: to make oxygen once you get there. So he huge problematic, right,

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Speaker 1: So he was working on a way of generating oxygen.

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Speaker 1: When that project fell through, he decided instead of just saying,

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Speaker 1: oh well, that was a waste of time, he looked

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Speaker 1: at his research and then said, what if I reversed

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Speaker 1: this process. So instead of generating oxygen, you know, using

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Speaker 1: energy to create oxygen, what if I try and create

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Speaker 1: energy by using oxygen. And so the Bloom box is

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Speaker 1: reportedly just essentially a reversal of the process that he

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Speaker 1: had been working on for this Mars mission, which I

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Speaker 1: think is pretty interesting. It's a nice repurposing of technology. Certainly,

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Speaker 1: um and uh, they've already got some some pretty high

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Speaker 1: end customers to one that rhymes with Google. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: also one that rhymes with Schmi Bay um now, Staples, FedEx,

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Speaker 1: Coca Cola, eBay, Google. These are all Walmart apparently is

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Speaker 1: working on powering stores with with the bloom energy server. Reportedly,

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Speaker 1: Google was the very first customer purchasing for of these

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Speaker 1: servers for one of their data centers. And I have

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Speaker 1: not heard anything negative about the outcome. Of course, that

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Speaker 1: may be the effect of a very powerful pr effort,

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Speaker 1: but I don't I don't know. I haven't heard anything

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Speaker 1: positive or negative saying these are the greatest things since uh,

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Speaker 1: sliced bread. Um. I haven't heard anything saying, you know,

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Speaker 1: these things are a piece of johnk either. So it

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Speaker 1: seems that the experiment, if you will, is off to

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Speaker 1: a decent start. Yeah. I think it's as long as

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Speaker 1: we remember that. Um. The important thing I think to

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Speaker 1: remember in this case is that the fuel. Yeah, it is.

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Speaker 1: It is based on fuel. It's not some people were

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Speaker 1: thinking about as some sort of weird free energy device,

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Speaker 1: like there was just this box. You would hook it

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Speaker 1: up to your house and it would magically produce electricity. Um.

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Speaker 1: And and that just comes from a misunderstanding of how

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Speaker 1: fuel cells work. It's it's ignoring the fuel in you'll sell.

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Speaker 1: So keeping in mind that this is something where you

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Speaker 1: have to refuel it, either with natural gas or biogas

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Speaker 1: um or apparently solar power, though I still don't understand

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Speaker 1: how that works. Uh. If you keep that in mind,

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Speaker 1: then it may very well be a a nice step.

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Speaker 1: It's still not. It's not. It's not necessarily as green

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Speaker 1: a response is, say, finding a renewable energy source empowering

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Speaker 1: your business with that. But even that has its problems, right,

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Speaker 1: because these renewable energy sources, the source is clean, but

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Speaker 1: the devices we use to harness it are not. Because

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Speaker 1: we've talked about that with solar panels and with even

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Speaker 1: the turbines that we use to gather wind energy. These

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Speaker 1: rely on very scarce materials, some of which are toxic

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Speaker 1: in nature. So it's um, you know, this is this

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Speaker 1: is one of those tough things, right, you know, just

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Speaker 1: sit there and try and figure out what's the best

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Speaker 1: option out of all the things that we have available

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Speaker 1: to us. Yeah. Not everyone can park their giant data

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Speaker 1: center on the shore of the on the banks of

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Speaker 1: the Columbia River and harness the water power or plan

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Speaker 1: a water born data center that harnesses the tides itself

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Speaker 1: to create power. That's pretty nifty. You haven't uh, the

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Speaker 1: the the the patent for that Google file, the patent

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Speaker 1: for that floating data center. It's actually really kind of fascinating. Yeah. Um,

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Speaker 1: I'd like to think of the I T specialists station

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00:20:29,720 --> 00:20:32,119
Speaker 1: on there is walking around with peg legs and saying,

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Speaker 1: are uh patchy, get down there and swap out this

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Speaker 1: hard drive. Um, sir, this this here server needs a

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Speaker 1: patch o. UM. So but yes, that's that's what they've

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Speaker 1: they've started with. Although UM I did find an article

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Speaker 1: in Fast Company from September twenty this year by Ariel

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Speaker 1: Schwartz tech journalists and um Ariel said that Bloom Energy

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Speaker 1: is in fact working on a home version of the unit,

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Speaker 1: which I I had I remember hearing, but I'm glad

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Speaker 1: I found a source for it. It would cost, according

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Speaker 1: to miss Schwarts, about three thousand dollars UM and they

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Speaker 1: expect to release it in the near future. I don't

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Speaker 1: know what the near future specifically means, but I do

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Speaker 1: believe that they are working on something. You could use

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Speaker 1: this uh uh you know, a larger box the ones

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Speaker 1: that that uh power the uh industrial facilities to to

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Speaker 1: harness that in a local setting, but if you wanted

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Speaker 1: one to hook up to your house, you know, there

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Speaker 1: is an option for that supposedly coming in the future.

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Speaker 1: And by the way, UH Bloom Energy refers to this

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Speaker 1: as distributed generation, and they're saying that this is a

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Speaker 1: much more UH secure method of generating electricity. Of course,

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Speaker 1: the power outages in the grid in the Northeastern United

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Speaker 1: States illustrate the problems that can come from relying on

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Speaker 1: such a widespread grid. There have also been some very

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Speaker 1: famous ones in California. Oh yes, yes, Um, so this

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Speaker 1: could be a kind of an answer to that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if people adopted and if it if it's as successful

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Speaker 1: and and as efficient as it seems to be. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And the executives that Bluem Energy have even said that

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Speaker 1: the power companies themselves might invest in this. And as

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Speaker 1: you were saying, create neighborhood networks where each neighborhood has

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Speaker 1: its own bluem Energy server that's owned by the power company.

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Speaker 1: So you're still getting your electricity from the power company,

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00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:34,040
Speaker 1: it's just instead of getting it from a coal burning

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Speaker 1: facility that is, you know, generating the power, you'd be

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Speaker 1: getting it from a bluem Energy server owned by that company.

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Speaker 1: So it'll be interesting to see. Yeah, I think, um,

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Speaker 1: I think as far as reducing emissions, it's potentially a

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00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:53,280
Speaker 1: great thing, whether or not it will make financial sense

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Speaker 1: to move to that. See, that's the problem is that

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Speaker 1: sometimes what makes sense financially, unfortunately, does not measure up

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Speaker 1: with what makes sense in every other sense of the word. Right,

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Speaker 1: And of course, as we know, as we know, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, the boxes running on natural gas. Uh, fossil

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Speaker 1: fuels are finite, so bio gas I mean that that's

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Speaker 1: a little No. I'm sure we could probably find some

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Speaker 1: methane somewhere around here. I'm not saying don't don't make

396
00:23:20,520 --> 00:23:23,800
Speaker 1: comments about Josh, not his fault. I didn't name names.

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Speaker 1: You're the one in anyway, But no, I do think

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Speaker 1: that that would be an option. But you know, it's

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Speaker 1: going to need to be flexible, and apparently it seems

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Speaker 1: that Blue Energy has taken that into account. So maybe

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00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:41,880
Speaker 1: uh facilities located near landfills which are generating methane, and boy,

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00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:45,240
Speaker 1: how do you do they? Um? I used to play

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00:23:45,280 --> 00:23:47,760
Speaker 1: disc golf at a park that was next to a

404
00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:49,760
Speaker 1: landfill and they had those you know, the pipes where

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Speaker 1: they vent the gas. Well, let's be fair. Methane itself

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00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:57,360
Speaker 1: before anyone writes in, is has no odor on its own,

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00:23:57,760 --> 00:24:01,440
Speaker 1: but it does come with some other stuff that. Yes, yes,

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00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:04,879
Speaker 1: the methane that you're familiar with. The odor comes from

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Speaker 1: either other materials or it's an odor that has specifically

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Speaker 1: been included by the gas company so that if there

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Speaker 1: were a guest like you would be able to detect it.

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Speaker 1: And we are aware of that, So please don't email

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Speaker 1: us all right, So anyway, let's wrap this up. This

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Speaker 1: was demystifying the bloom box. If you guys have a

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Speaker 1: particular topic you would like us to demystify, So it's

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00:24:24,080 --> 00:24:29,040
Speaker 1: really kind of exploring something and discussing how it really works. Um,

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00:24:29,119 --> 00:24:31,240
Speaker 1: let us know. One of the things we were talking

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Speaker 1: about possibly tackling in the future is, for example, the segue. Yes.

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Speaker 1: So if you have a topic that you would like

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00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:41,320
Speaker 1: us to demystify, let us know on either Twitter or

421
00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:45,480
Speaker 1: Facebook are handled. There is tech Stuff hs W, or

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00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:48,440
Speaker 1: you can shoot us an email at tech stuff at

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00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:50,800
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com and Chris and I will

424
00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:57,119
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon for more on this

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00:24:57,240 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff Works

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00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:02,320
Speaker 1: dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click on

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00:25:02,359 --> 00:25:04,719
Speaker 1: the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our

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00:25:04,760 --> 00:25:08,760
Speaker 1: homepage the House Stuffworks dot Com. My phone app is

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